Romney: Got God Or Just The Crazy?
The fancy super-computer algorithm thingie that catches stories so's we can look at porn must have had a hiccup yesterday or else we would've written earlier about this item from Editor & Publisher about the Mitter's Mormon, erm, problem. E&P turned to an expert source on the zany but endearing beliefs of our friends of the LDS (that always sounds like it should be a learning disorder to me...): Pulitzer Prize-winning, uh, cartoonist Steve Benson! Don't worry though, he know's what he's talking about - he comes from a long line of former Mormons.
Benson's deeply concerned that Romney isn't telling the truth about how his crazy religion will influence his decisions as president (hahaha) and thinks the media is playing softball with the candidate on the issue. I'm just going to quote the E&P thing here for a second because I don't want to get confused trying to transcribe the crazy:
He told E&P that, in his view, a Mormon believer is required by church doctrine (as dictated by the church's "living prophet") to "obey God's commands" over anything else. He said "Romney, like all 'temple Mormons,' made his secret vows using Masonic-derived handshakes, passwords, and symbolic death oaths that he promised in the temple never to reveal to the outside world" -- and that Romney also secretly vowed to devote his "time, talents" and more "to the building of the Mormon religion on earth."
And:
"When Mitt says he belongs to a church that doesn't tell him what to do, that's false; it's a 24/7, do-what-you're-told-to-do church," asserted Benson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1993."
So how does Benson know all this? What makes him different from all the other bitter, de-programmed ex-Mormons who are (probably) out there? His grandfather was Mormon Leader Ezra Taft Bensen who Mormon officials propped up as head of the Chruch Strom Thurmond-style (or, let's say, Pope JPII-style) long after the guy had all but checked out, according to the younger Bensen. That sort of dishonesty really turned him off and so he quit. And then won a Pulitzer. For cartooning. Don't know how that relates, but it seemed like it should be mentioned again.
So is Mitt telling the truth when he says his Mormonism isn't really that big a deal? Or is he as wacky as his crazy-eyes and frantic pandering might suggest? Who cares. The guy will never be president anyway.
[= Ex-Mormon Cartoonist Says Romney Not Telling The Truth [E&P]